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What Is Web 2.0? What Does It Mean For Anthropology?
What Is Web 2.0? What Does It Mean For Anthropology?
What Is Web 2.0? What Does It Mean For Anthropology?
Raising Awareness of
Prehistoric African Rock Art
A Talk by David Coulson In March, British photographer David Coulson
spoke to an audience in Santa Fe, NM at the
Lensic, Santa Fe’s Performing Arts Center. The
JEAN SCHAUMBERG event was a first-time collaboration between the
LYNN THOMPSON BACA School for Advanced Research (Santa Fe, NM)
SCHOOL FOR ADVANCED RESEARCH and The Leakey Foundation (San Francisco, CA).
Coulson’s images aptly illustrated the magnif-
The African continent is home to some of the icent engravings and paintings he documented
world’s most beautiful art—rock art. Images for the book, African Rock Art: Paintings and
Fighting cats. Photo courtesy of David Coulson
of 20-foot giraffes in Niger’s Aïr Mountains, Engravings on Stone (2001) that he co-authored
engravings of human footprints in the Western with Alec Campbell. Vertical rock surfaces are
Kalahari Desert, and carvings of 6.5-foot intri- good locations for rock art, although engravings “TARA’s mission is to create greater global
cately decorated human figures in Chad are just tend to be concentrated in the Sahara Desert, awareness of the importance and endangered
some of the figures meticulously etched into or central Tanzania, eastern Zambia and South state of Africa’s rock art; to survey sites and
painted on rock surfaces throughout Africa. Africa. Paintings are found in protected areas monitor their status; to be an information
Over 500,000 pictographs and petroglyphs either in shelters of sandstone or granite or on resource and archive; and to promote and
dating back as much as 26,000 years tes- cliffs and boulders not exposed to the elements. support rock art conservation measures.” The
tify to the fact that prehistoric African people The locations of several hundred thousand organization has the support and endorsement
were prolific artists who created intricate and works of art are officially known and each year of Kofi Annan and Nelson Mandela as well as
thoughtful pieces of art across a vast continent. hundreds more are added to the list. The Getty Conservation Institute, The National
African rock art is among the best preserved on The late paleontologist Mary Leakey intro- Geographic Society and The Ford Foundation.
earth and predates writing by tens of thousands duced Coulson to the rock paintings of central Vandalism, an encroaching population, and a
of years. While it is difficult to determine the Tanzania. Leakey and Coulson shared a love for growing tourist industry are major threats today
exact age of the rock art using modern scien- the rock art and a mutual concern for its protec- to the petroglyphs and pictographs. David and
tific methods, the images themselves can offer tion. This led to the 1996 creation of TARA, the TARA are committed to helping preserve the
valuable clues. The artists painted and carved Trust for African Rock Art, a not-for-profit, NGO magnificent work of African prehistoric peoples
what they saw in their world. registered in Kenya and America. as a legacy for present and future generations.
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KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE May 2007 • Anthropology News
“digg” a website to the top of the list or “bury the same Creative Commons license, which means material for collaboration which feeds
it.” It was quickly “dugg up” to the front page. people can show it, save it and change it as long as back into the loop of creation and dis-
By noon the next day it had over 18,000 views they give me proper attribution. I also posted it on semination.
and had become the most linked video in the Mojiti, a site which allows people to add their own
blogosphere, appearing at the top of video rank- subtitles and animations to the video. New Forms of Sociality
ings on Technorati and viralvideochart.com. With the combination of a Creative Commons But if we focus on the media alone we are
From there it had the momentum to attract over license, Mojiti and other collaboration-enhanc- missing the bigger picture. It is not just the
two million views over the next two months. ing technologies like Google Docs, the video has mediascape that is transforming, it is human
inspired others to create a mass of additional relationships, and anthropologists are increas-
Creative Commons and Collaboration material which includes a full transcript, embed- ingly being called upon to explain this.
Third and finally, collaboration has never been ded links to additional information, numerous Understanding human relationships within
easier. The video I created was actually created in thoughtful commentaries in which people actually this new mediascape will require us to embrace
collaboration with Deus, a musician living in the wrote on top of the video, and mashups in which our anthropological mainstay, participant obser-
Ivory Coast whom I have never met. Deus offers people took pieces of the video to create their own vation. We know the value of participant obser-
his music for free under a Creative Commons arguments in reply to mine. Most impressively, vation in understanding social worlds. Now we
license which designates that others may use his within just two weeks after I first posted the video, need to participate in the new media in order to
music as part of their own creative works as long it had been translated into five languages. understand the new forms of sociality emerging
as they give credit to him for the music. In short, creation, dissemination and col- in this quickly changing mediated world.
Creative Commons is just one of many new ways laboration have never been easier. And these
of thinking about copyright that enables more cre- three elements feed into one another. The ease Michael Wesch is assistant professor of cultural anthro-
ativity and collaboration. I offered my video under of creation and dissemination creates more pology at Kansas State University.
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